Where to start, but the beginning. Well, not the very beginning, just the beginning of this story.

Like most people out there, my family has found it hard to make ends meet.  It seems like every time we start to get ahead something happens and we start falling down that slippery financial slope many of us call life.  Sound familiar?  If not, then these posts are not for you.  If it does, then believe me when I say I may not know you, but I know how you feel.

There we were, wondering how the hell this happened.  We didn’t go out and buy anything too extravagant, just food and necessities.  That’s how it gets you.  Like I heard Dave Ramsey say on his program once “it isn’t one $1000 cut that gets you, it’s 100 $10 cuts”, or something like that.  I have a good job and make a decent salary.  My problem was it just wasn’t enough.  We had a small deficit every month.  That little bit was often put on a credit card and then that added a monthly payment which we didn’t have. It kept compounding until we arrived at the realization that we had to make a decision.  Either submit to the modern debtors’ prison and continue to roll one credit card into another and transfer and juggle balances until the end of time (or the end of our time) or make a change.  Really make a change.

I was working a normal 40 hr job.  It is good reliable work and I enjoy it (to a point).  It is very close to my home and it works for me and pays well.  So what to do?  Look for more income, of course.  After trying various avenues I decided we needed a steady second income source so I found a second job.  It isn’t too intense and gives us the steady additional income stream we needed. This works well to begin alleviating the burden of debt we had accumulated.  After doing the math though, it will still take quite some time.  I have been working the two jobs for about 9 months now and I will have to continue for about 2-3 more years.  So my hope, and the focus of these posts, is to find an additional alternative to bringing in more money to survive and then thrive.  Hopefully, this will allow us to cut down the 2-3 years of working two jobs to 1-2 years.

Here is my Goal:

Make additional money online with little / no investment coming from any of our normal income streams.

Here is my Plan on how I’ll actually do this (not in any order):

When I plan for things I don’t like to put all of my hopes and dreams in one basket so there are many avenues.  I’ll let you know which work for me and maybe they will work for you as well.

1. Swagbucks.com – a website set up to allow you to earn money for completing simple tasks such as watching videos, completing surveys, etc.

2.  Write a Kindle Book – I found a lot of articles that say it is very easy to self-publish on Kindle format and I have wanted to try to write for some time now.

3.  Transcribeme – Transcription website that pays individuals to transcribe documents on your own time.

4.  Fiverr – A great website that allows people to offer their skills in exchange for a Fiverr ($5) but you only get $4 after fees are taken out.

5.  Setup a website selling a product – Still researching this.

6.  Build an App – I mean Flappy Bird made MILLIONS!

7.  Create an Online Course – Simple enough right

8.  Make an Online Guide – I’ve done this with some woodworking plans in the past just have to work on more ideas.

9.  Buy something in bulk and sell as an individual size – I know of some people that have done this by buying paints/chemicals in 50-gallon jugs and sell them in gallon and quart sizes.

10.  Blog <- Well thanks for reading 🙂

In the next few posts, I’ll go into more detail on how I’m progressing in each avenue, but that is where I plan to start.  Be sure to stay tuned!